In Plain Sight
by rowen-claw
Summary: Dragons in a modern world... What's a modern girl to do? (previously published as 'Hidden Dragons')
1. Chapter 1

October 12 was turning out to be a very awesome day for me. First of all, it was my birthday, and I had just finished eating a slice of chocolate cake with chocolate icing, which is one of the greatest food items ever created. Second of all, the next-best part of every birthday was coming up. Presents! The first gift I opened was a card from my grandmother. It was $13, one dollar for each year of my normal life. That was expected. The next gift was a box of 79 colored pencils, in every color of the rainbow, and then some. Aside from being a lover of books, I was also an aspiring artist, so this was an awesome present for me. I opened a box of almond joy bars, an awesome orange wristlet purse, and a few books. The last gift was a rather unassuming envelope. I opened it, thinking that it was probably money or gift cards. Out fell three tickets, and a letter. It read: _Dallas Museum of Art - Arts and Letters Live: Christopher Paolini discusses the last book in the Inheritance Cycle. _I dropped the page.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I screamed. It was a long, awkward, fangirl-ish scream that echoed throughout the house and the surrounding area. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"You're welcome sweetie!" My mother said. "You can take a friend with you!"

"Can I take Lydia?"

"Yes you may. I'll call her mom." This was quickly turning into the best birthday in my whole entire life. My mother had gotten me a ticket to see Christopher Paolini speak at the Dallas Museum of Art in two weeks! And beforehand, there would be a tour of the museum's fantasy collections. Yes, this was definitely the best day of my whole entire life.

Two weeks later, I stood in front of the DMA with Lydia, tickets clutched to my chest. In the pocket of my jeans I had $40 worth of birthday money with which to buy the limited edition copy of Inheritance that would be sold for the first time that night!

"Just think Lydia, we'll get to see the guy who actually wrote Eragon! I'm so excited!"

"Me too. Other girls scream over One Direction, look at us. Screaming over a twenty-something author who isn't even all that attractive." She said with a smile.

"Don't you diss my Christopher. Anyway, I already have a boyfriend."

"What? This is news. Who is he?" Lydia said, sounding shocked.

"Pi Patel or George Weasely. Though if I had to pick an Inheritance Cycle guy, it would be Murtagh."

"Oh, you and your fictional boyfriends. This is why we are still single in real life."

"Lydia, we're only 13. Chill."

We walked into the museum and paused next to that marble statue of a roman lady reclining on a coffin. There, we met the lady who was going to do the tour. She had awkward cat-eye glasses, weirdly stiff hair and a smile that was a bit too happy. Lydia and I waited for a few minutes, and a few more groups of people gathered, mostly children aged 7-10 and their world-weary parents. The only other people I saw that were my age were a boy with a brown ponytail and a girl who was about six feet tall. They were both holding thick books.

"Alright guys!" The tour guide said in that ultra-peppy and annoying way that only tour guides have. "Let's get started!" The guide proceeded to lead us through the European art gallery, pausing to point out some pictures of Jesus and some saints. A lady complained that Jesus was real and that this wasn't fantasy art, and the tour guide just smiled and led us to another room.

She started talking about a small marble statue of a naked Greek man walking through waves. It was quite boring, and my gaze drifted to other parts of the room. If you looked out the doorway and into the next room, you could see a rather awesome Mondrian painting. I looked past the tour guide, and right there behind her was a pedestal with some sort of sculpture on it. I thought that it must be at least a little bit more interesting than the naked Greek guy, but unfortunately the 6-foot tall girl was blocking my view. I peeked around her, and looked at the very object that would change my life forever. Sitting on that pedestal was a dragon egg.

At least I thought it was a dragon egg. It certainly looked like one, based on the description in Paolini's books. It looked like white marble, with blue-grey streaks. I had this crazy urge to run back to the exhibit, grab the egg and see if it would hatch for me. We exited the galleries and went downstairs to the auditorium where Mr. Paolini was about to speak. For the rest of the day, I couldn't get that dragon egg out of my head. At Even when Christopher Paolini himself started talking about writing the Inheritance cycle, I kept thinking about the egg. When I got home, I dreamed about it. I had no idea what to do.

It was a whole year before I got my wish, to touch that dragon egg. It took many nights lying awake and many long showers to come up with an even slightly reasonable plan, and even then I wasn't sure that my idea would work.

Basically the plan was that I would stumble and trip over the railing surrounding the sculpture, 'accidentally' brushing the egg with my hand. If the dragon inside was going to hatch for me, it would have to hatch right then and there, because I wouldn't get another chance.

However I did have a backup plan. If somehow I was able to steal the egg, I could leave a replacement. My mom had this tacky giant plastic Easter egg, and I painted it to look like marble. Hopefully it would fool the security guards until I got away. I put the fake egg inside my favorite giant bag, concealing it with a newspaper. I went to the museum on a summer weekday when nobody was there, except for the security guards.

I brought along a sketchbook as a prop so I would have an excuse to sit in the gallery for a long time. I waited until the guard walked into the next room, then tripped over the rail around the sculpture. I flailed my arms as I fell. _Dragon, if you're gonna hatch, you better hatch now or you're never gonna get another chance! _I thought desperately as my fingertips brushed the egg. I crashed to the ground. An alarm blared. A security guard rushed into the exhibit, and when he saw that I had fallen, he walked over and helped me up. Two more guards rushed into the exhibit while the one guard was helping me up, and immediately ran over to inspect the sculptures. To my despair, the egg had not moved one inch on its pedestal. The security guard pulled me over and began to lecture me.

"Young lady if you had damaged those sculptures, you have no idea how bad it would be. Those things are irreplaceable representations of 17th century sculpture! Now I have to question you, and if we find so much as a fingerprint on that marble, you will be sued for every penny you have!" The guard spat, red-faced.

"I'm so sorry!" I sobbed, remembering the story I had rehearsed many times before. "I just wanted to get a better look at the reflection of light on the egg and I wasn't looking where I was going and-" I broke down crying. But I wasn't crying because of the security guard yelling. I cried because the dragon had not hatched. For the past year I had counted on the dragon hatching for me, simply because I was the only one who noticed that it was a dragon egg. The Inheritance cycle books were my life. I had read the whole series at least 10 times, and memorized most of the ancient language mentioned in the books. But there was no dragon for me.

The security guard noticed how hard I was crying, and backed away. He didn't seem to think a skinny 14-year-old girl with a sketchbook was much of a threat. "I'm going to go shut off the alarm. Go wash your face. Don't trip over any more sculptures!" I watched the guard walk away, and an idea struck me. Since the alarm was already blaring, no one would notice if I grabbed the egg and ran.

I did exactly that. I swapped the dragon egg for the wooden egg, and walked quickly out of the museum and to the trolley stop. I sat down in the old trolley car, and plotted my escape. My friend Lydia lived in an apartment about a mile from my house, and an apartment roof was as good a place to raise a dragon as any place. Then I remembered that I had no dragon, only an egg that wouldn't hatch for me. After all my work, the dragon didn't hatch for me. A tear dripped down my cheek. Now I had no hope.

I looked inside my tote bag, and there I saw the dragon egg. It was beautiful white marble, with blue-grey streaks the color of rainclouds. I closed the bag, and I started thinking. Where could I go? What could I do? I was probably a wanted art thief by now, and I was carrying the stolen object. If anyone questioned me, the egg in my bag would remove all doubt that I was indeed a thief. Where _could_ I go?

I did a lot of thinking on the trolley ride back home. If the dragon egg did indeed have a dragon inside it, then dragons were real. If dragons were real, then the rest of the Inheritance cycle was probably also real. I supposed that the only way to find out would be to ask Christopher Paolini himself, but that was kind of impossible. Then I remembered that Eragon had Saphira's egg for a while before it hatched for him.

A new hope pulsed through me. I wondered if maybe, just maybe the egg might hatch for me! If the egg did hatch though, I would almost certainly have to move away just so the dragon could feed itself. Maybe to Canada? Africa? And what if some scientist found the dragon? It would be kept in a cage and experimented on. That is, if there was even a dragon. I forced myself to stop thinking so far ahead, and to focus on the moment.

_Inhale, exhale. You are carrying a dragon egg. You are a wanted art thief. YOU ARE CARRYING A DRAGON EGG STOLEN FROM A MUSEUM IN YOUR BAG OMGOMGOMG…_ That didn't work. And hyperventilating and crying and looking into your bag fearfully while riding the trolley will force the old lady behind you to gently touch your shoulder and ask if you are all right while dialing 911 on her Nokia. You heard me, a NOKIA. _(AN: excuse me while I repair the fourth wall…)_

So I decided to put the dragon egg out of my mind, and instead simply will the trolley to go faster in order to get home and think. (I've been known to occasionally faint in times of hysteria.) I exhaled, and imagined letting go of my hysterical energy… SCREEEEEEECCCHHHHHHHHH!

The trolley wheels screamed against the metal tracks and it sped toward the intersection as if a giant kicked it from behind. I was slammed forward in my seat, and my forehead crashed into the seat in front of me. The trolley stopped dead. I started to feel light-headed and dizzy… A moment later I vomited through the trolley window. Thank god it was open! I blindly groped inside my bag, found my water bottle and took a drink. I spat it out, and drank again. I felt better, but still very hungry. I rummaged through my bag, and finding only a box of tic-tacs, dumped about six of them into my palm, tossed them into my mouth, and swallowed immediately. A few sips of water and tic-tac handfuls later, I felt better.

The downside to my newfound wellness was that every single person in the trolley car was looking at me oddly. No, scratch that. They were staring at me like I had just sprouted two extra heads, and one of them had just caught fire. I looked down at my lap and clutched my bag protectively. By now, I had consumed almost the entire box of tic-tacs, and I ate the last few one by one to help me think.

What in **** had I just done? _No, stop with the curse words. Remain calm. Don't start throwing things, just think! What just happened!? _Only this kind of confusion could bring on full Sherlock Holmes mode.

Due to my sudden sickness and hunger, I had just done something that probably enacted a toll on my body. Due to the fact that moments before the trolley sped up, I was thinking about making the train go faster and letting out my energy, I can reasonably conclude that the energy I 'let out' made the trolley go faster. That thought was pretty unreasonable. Magic didn't exist… Or did it? If the Inheritance Cycle books were real, then magic was real. And if I had just done magic, then I would have to be infinitely more careful in the future. I had almost no grasp of the grammar and syntax of the ancient language, even though I had memorized most of the glossaries in the Inheritance Cycle books. What if I talked in my sleep and used magic? What if I accidentally used magic in school or something? What in the world could I do?

**A.N.: This isn't really a self insert fic. I based the beginning off of my own experience; I did actually get to see Christopher Paolini at the Dallas Museum of Art for a birthday present, and there actually is a dragon egg in that museum. You should go see it. It's beautiful!**

**Some of you who frequently read Inheritance Cycle fan-fiction may recognize this story. I wrote it, uploaded it and then realized that it sucked, so I deleted it from the site in order to edit it. Please enjoy this edited and slightly less sucky version.**

**PLEASE I NEED constructive criticism because my writing is kind of crappy and I must improve so feel free… Flame if you feel it's necessary. **


	2. Chapter 2

After the magic-trolley incident, I decided that Lydia had to know about this. Lydia knew about my dragon-egg thievery already, and I knew that she wouldn't call the police or anything. As a matter of fact, she was the one who suggested painting the wooden egg to look like marble and swapping it. So I got off the trolley one stop early and started to walk to Lydia's apartment.

A minute later, I knocked on Lydia's apartment door. After being warned by her mom that Lydia was doing homework and that I shouldn't stay too long, I stepped into Lydia's bedroom and nearly stepped on her. She was sprawled on the floor, math worksheets and textbooks strewn around her.

"Ugh this algebra homework is awful. Who gives a rat's fart about parabolas anyway!?"

"Lydia, we're gonna have bigger problems than stupid parabolas. Look in my bag."

Lydia didn't understand the full implications of what I said until I opened my bag and swept aside some of the empty gum packets and crumpled receipts to reveal the shining marble of the dragon egg. It seemed to glow softly; its brilliance shaming the inside of my cheap giant bag.

"That can't be what I think it is…" Lydia said, softly. She sounded so awed and happy, like that dragon egg was the answer to her prayers and she couldn't quite believe it yet.

"I assure you, it is. Or at least I think so…" Contrary to Lydia's awe, I was still thinking about what the heck I was going to do with the dragon egg. The trolley ride had given me way too much time to think.

"Why hasn't it hatched?"

"I don't know. It might not hatch for me, you realize that?" I said a bit snappishly.

"Well, I just thought…since you found it…"

"I thought so too, but I guess I was wrong. I just need your help. You know the Inheritance cycle forwards, backwards, left, right, and center. What should I do? "

A slightly awkward silence ensued. Lydia pulled herself off of the floor and kicked worksheet under her bed. She fell onto the bed, deep in thought.

"Well, Saphira didn't hatch for Eragon for a few days… I suggest you give the egg some time, and then try to return it to the museum. Although I wouldn't mind seeing if it would hatch for me…"

"Of course, of course. But what should I do now?" I said, growing hysterical again. "It's a freaking dragon egg! A DRAGON for god's sake! Who knows how long it's been trapped in its egg!"

"Calm down. Just breathe. Think about letting go of your hysteria…" I took a deep breath. Lydia didn't understand how big this really was.

"Lydia, the last time I did that, I unintentionally made a trolley go faster, and then proceeded to barf out of the trolley window. I think I used magic. I'm in over my head. You have to help me!"

Lydia gave me an odd look and I sat down heavily on the bed.

"Are you sure?"

"No, actually. I'm so confused. What the heck are we supposed to even do?"

"Well here's what we're gonna do. Let's test you magical abilities!" Lydia had an excited gleam in her eyes.

"Umm, I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why?"

"I did puke out of the trolley window, almost faint, get this fantastic bruise on my forehead, and nearly cause a trolley crash last time I did magic."

"Well in that case…"

"Yeah. Probably not the best idea." We sat silent for a few minutes, the utter enormity of the situation hitting us both. Dragons didn't even exist, according to science. I was now the owner of a stolen yet technically nonexistent object, which would someday grow to be larger than a house. And I had no idea what to do with it.

"Well then, have you tried to get it to hatch?" Lydia asked.

"Well… not really…"

"Well let's do it then!"

"No! What if it hatches here? What will we do with it?" I didn't really have the courage to tell Lydia that the egg didn't hatch for me.

"Good point. We're going up to the roof!"

"Wait, NO!" I exclaimed. But Lydia had already grabbed my bag and was walking out her family's apartment door. I ran after her, but she sped up.

"Come on! What harm could it do?" She asked as my mind raced.

"We have no idea how to raise a dragon!"

"Ahh, we'll figure it out. Just like Eragon!" By this point we had reached the roof and she had set the bag down on top of an air conditioning unit.

"Lydia!" I yelled as she opened the bag and grabbed the egg with both hands. "Be careful!"

But the egg didn't move. It didn't crack, or glow, or do anything else that dragon's eggs are supposed to do.

"Well, why don't you try then?" Lydia asked, looking more than a little bit crestfallen.

"No. Let's just go back inside. We need to do some research ."

"Well OK, if that's really what you want to do."

"I really need to go back home. I need to figure this out." Without waiting for Lydia's reply, I grabbed the bag off of the air conditioner and dashed down the roof-access stairs.

I decided to walk back home rather than take the trolley. It was an uneventful walk, mostly because I was more focused on getting home quickly without running suspiciously. When I got home, my mom and dad were both at work, and my little brother was playing Minecraft.

I went straight to my room and dumped the egg out onto my bed. I had a bunk bed, so I went to work making a little blanket-fort on the bottom bunk. Only when I had completely decked out my rather amazing blanket fort with a lamp, some snacks and my laptop did I return to the big question, what to do with the dragon egg?

I got out my Inheritence Cycle books, and began to read through the scene where Eragon and Saphira are in the Vault of Souls. _The lava kept the eggs warm…_

That was it! The dragon egg needed to be warm!

"I'm taking a bath!" I yelled in my little brother's direction. I then hid the marble egg under my towel and crept quietly to the bathroom. I set the egg on the countertop and laid the towel in the bottom of the bathtub so the egg wouldn't roll around.

I then turned the water on to lukewarm and set the egg in the bathtub. It probably wouldn't be the best idea to immediately pour hot water over a cold object, or to submerge it in water, so I filled the tub with about an inch of water.

I climbed in, fully clothed, and with another towel, I carefully set the egg into the water. A few layers of museum dust came off, and I realized how dirty the egg actually was. Detaching the shower-head, I sprayed the warm water over the cold marble, hoping to at least get it relatively clean. Luckily, the smooth surface wasn't very hard to wash off.

A few minutes later, I decided to get back to my research. I dried off the egg and put it in a cardboard box with a heating pad and some blankets. I changed out of my soaked clothes and climbed back into my 'research den'.

I was mid-way through the part in Inheritence where Eragon finds the Vault of Souls when I realized that I actually hadn't touched the egg with my bare hands since I warmed it up.

Slowly, almost reverently, I placed the cardboard box on my bed. Covering my hands with the blankets, I placed the egg in the center of my pillow. And it hit me. This object, this _thing_, was mine. No matter if it hatched for me or not, I would have to be like Arya and protect it. I couldn't let it be taken to another museum, or be damaged or stolen. Somewhere inside that marble, there was a dragon, and even if it didn't choose me, it was still my duty to care for it.

I must have spent a bit too long staring at that egg, because when the moment of truth arrived, I was almost scared. But I stiffened my spine, and grabbed it with both hands. _Dragon, if you're mine, I'm ready. Hatch if you are. _

**A.N.**

**Cliffy! Trololololol….. See you in the next chapter!**

**Soon I will be introducing an O.C. who will end up as the love interest of Lydia. However I need some inspiration, so if you want, you may create an O.C. **

**The O.C. must be between 12 and 17 years old, must be human, and must not be a Gary Stu/Mary Sue. I already have some idea of the powers/background of this character, but I need a name, race, age, likes and dislikes, hobbies, etc. **

**(The O.C. can be a boy or a girl. But I would prefer a boy. :D)**

**If I choose your O.C. to be in the story, I will give you credit, and also I will ask your advice about the story. PM me or just review if you want your O.C. to be considered!**

**Thanks to natalie1668 and FBSnightstalker for your support of the story! And also thanks again to FBSnightstalker for being the first reviewer! YAY!**

**And to the Guest who flamed, I'm sorry you feel that I ruined my own story. I thought about this too while writing it, however the main character knowing about the Inheritance Cycle plays a huge role in the plot. You'll just have to read and see. If you even care :D**

**Anyway thanks for taking the time to give criticism even though you didn't like the story. I feel loved :D**


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